"The Other Election" or "At Least Romney Isn't Guilty Of Crimes Against Humanity!"

[Seil]

So some of the candidates for the Presidency in Kenya are guilty of crimes against humanity!

Originally Posted by http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/07/kenyan-presidential-candidates-to-stand-trial-for-crimes-against-humanity-2368560.html

The International Criminal Court said on Monday two senior Kenyan politicians would be tried for crimes against humanity in April 2013, just a month after they stand in a presidential election in east Africa’s largest economy.

The announcement of the court dates raises the prospect of Kenya’s next leader making his first foreign trip to appear in the dock of a court set up to try some of the world’s worst war crimes and atrocities.

The close scheduling could also complicate campaigning in a country that was ripped apart by ethnic violence and riots that killed more than 1,200 people during its last presidential vote in 2007.

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, a former finance minister, and William Ruto, former higher education minister, are among four Kenyans facing charges that they helped orchestrate the bloodshed that followed the disputed 2007 presidential vote. All deny wrongdoing.
Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s founding father Jomo Kenyatta, is running second in opinion polls for presidential vote next March behind current Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Analysts were divided over what impact the global court’s timetable might have on Kenyatta and Ruto’s election chances.

“The fact that the dates have been set may dampen the enthusiasm of some of their supporters. They will have doubts electing individuals who will in the very next month be heading to the ICC trials,” political commentator David Makali told Reuters.

But many of the men’s supporters had feared the court would order a trial before the election, possibly preventing them from running at all. Kenyatta and Ruto’s lawyers had campaigned for a trial date after the election.

Okay, so the 2013 Kenyan Presidential election has two candidates who are going to trial for 'Crimes Against Humanity.' This is a big deal: Uhuru Kenyatta, a former finance minister, and William Ruto, former higher education minister are to stand trial a month after the election. (Why the hell would people vote for these guys? Well, aside from fear, intimidation, extortion and torture-threats, of course.)

So what are they talking about? What ethnic violence? Well, this ethnic violence:

For Smith, African nations were not underpinned by culturally-united ethnic communities, and this is central in explaining their demise. What we see instead, is competition between ethnic groups who seek to guarantee access to state patronage. During the violence which surrounded Kenya’s recent elections, for example, newspapers reported that “tribal war” had exploded between the Kikuyu and Luo:

“Gangs went house to house, dragging people of certain tribes out of their homes and clubbing them to death”. This was an “atavistic vein of tribal tension that always lay beneath the surface but up until now had not provoked widespread mayhem” (International Herald Tribune and New York Times, 2007, emphasis mine). The Mau Mau revolt, almost half a century earlier, was explained in strikingly similar terms, “cited for years… as an example of the atavistic nature of African politics lying just beneath the surface” (Meredith, 2005: 79).
On this reading, it seems that the 2007 elections caused primordial tribal identities, which had previously been thinly veiled by the trappings of the modern state, to erupt with devastating consequences.

Some other racial differences that have gone on in Africa include:



So what have we got - Libya, Egypt, and Jordan rioting and overthrowing tyrants and dictators. How the hell did Kenyatta and Ruto get their names on the bloody ballots?

[phil_]

So, I have to be the one to say "Stop calling it 'The African Presidential Election,' Seil. It's the Kenyan Presidential election?"

As for

Originally Posted by Seil

Why the hell would people vote for these guys?

and

Originally Posted by Seil

How the hell did Kenyatta and Ruto get their names on the bloody ballots?

It hasn't come to a vote and won't come to a vote until March, so no one actually has voted for either of them. Getting on the ballot is most likely a function of being politically connected, as being the Deputy Prime Minister or a member of parliament will make one. Also, not to completely discount the possibility of either of these guys being elected, Kenya's presidential election isn't a binary choice like the US effectively is. Buncha other guys and gals are running. So it's not really the choice between two potential orchestrators of genocide that this article makes it out to be.

Did I mention I know nothing about Kenya?

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by phil_

So, I have to be the one to say "Stop calling it 'The African Presidential Election,' Seil. It's the Kenyan Presidential election?"

^

[Magus]

When is the election of the President of Africa? Mandela could totally run. He's only...90 something.

[shiney]

Obama would run but he's a little busy for the next several years.